When to be wary of conditional statements in ACs?

monika_p

Hi guys,

This is something I've sort of noticed with BR'ing a lot of logical reasoning - it seems that depending on the question type, an answer choice that is a conditional statement can SOMETIMES be a more unlikely contender. It seems to depend on question type.

For instance, sufficient assumption answer choices are usually phrased as conditional statements because, well, you're literally filling in a missing premise. However, that doesn't really seem to apply with necessary assumption, because you're looking for the critical assumption that would make the argument fall apart - and that usually isn't a conditional statement. I've also noticed people being wary of conditional statement answer choices when it's a weakening question: If we don't know that the sufficient triggers, how do we know it affects the argument?

So I guess my question is - I know to always be vigilant of exceptions, but are there indeed LR question types where seeing an answer choice that is phrased as a conditional statement makes you think "mmm unlikely"? And if so which ones? I don't see this as a "silver bullet" way of crossing things off, but I thought it would be useful to be wary. (Kind of like when I now come across a weakening question and read an AC that begins with "Some people..". Since some = a few = could be just one person, it's unlikely that "some" is strong enough to weaken the argument.)

Just trying to build my wariness/understanding! Thank you!

NotMyName

Just trying to build my wariness/understanding! Thank you!

I do this all the time, as well. In my experience, however, the mere presence of a conditional in the AC is not a signal for me. Instead, the nature of the conditional is extremely important. That is where prephrasing can be helpful: knowing that you must not have a "some" statement, or being very clear what is necessary/sufficient and not mixing them up.